Survival - Last of Us
by Ace-Zychen179
Summary: This story shows Ellie and Joel 6 months after the events of the game, and it mainly follows two OC's called Damon and Tara. It's basically a series of flashbacks of how Damon got to Tommy's town. Enjoy :) "I had become just like the lifeless, grunting violent monsters I had spent years running from. Till I met you. You gave a reason to survive. You gave me something to fight for."
1. Snow

**A/N: Hey guys, this is my first Last of Us fanfic. It follows an OC called Damon who meets Ellie and Joel 6 months after the events of the game. It's basically a series of flashbacks of how he got there and his story. I completely love TLOU it's my favourite game, favourite story, favourite apocolyptic setting etc. Feel free to leave feedback and enjoy :) **

**I do not own The Last of Us or any of it's characters. I only own the characters of Damon and Tara.**

* * *

Ellie picked up the axe and swung at the wood. Snow slowly fell on the wood and she hoped it wouldn't be too damp to start a fire with. Water vapor in the air curled in front of her face as she exhaled, building up the energy for another swing. She went for her second swing when she heard a thump in the snow. She immediately dropped the axe and pulled out her 9mm.

_Fucking runners!_ She thought aiming the pistol at the noise she heard.

She squinted her eyes and peered through the falling snowflakes to see it wasn't an infected. Instead, it was a boy. Dark skin, short black dreadlocks and a faded, black tattered hoodie.

He was shivering as he knelt in the snow after falling to his knees trying to stay concsious and upright.

"Holy shit." Ellie said putting her gun in her back pocket. "Joel get out here!"

The now 15 year old Ellie ran through the cold towards the towns perimeter fence. She clutched the metal seperating them. She took out her knife and began cutting a hole in the fence large enough for her to crawl through. The boys eyes flickered as she stood up and took her first steps outside of the town in 6 months. She ran to him and the boy fell as she got there.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?!" Joel shouted as he shook the fence. "Get back here right now!"

"Look it's a kid, help me get him through the fence." Ellie said pulling the unconscious body through the snow. She noticed he left drips of red in the white snow and looked down. His feet were bleeding through his tattered converse shoes.

"We don't know who he is Ellie, let the guards take care of it." Joel said frustrated.

"He'll be dead by then Joel."

"Don't you remember the ambush in Pittsburgh, we don't know who this kid is."

"Shut up and help me carry him inside."

* * *

The two placed him on Ellie's bed and searched his pockets.

"No guns, just a broken bow and 1 arrow...And a notebook." Ellie said holding up a worn out notebook with 'T.A.S.T' on the front.

"F-Firefly." Joel said.

"What?"

"The kids a Firefly." Joel said picking up the pendant."T. Broderson..."

_Shit they've finally come for her,_ Joel thought to himself. _We have to leave. But I can't bloody well tell her why..._

He looked down at the firefly boy.

"The fireflies really pick them young dont they..." Eliie said solemnly remembering Riley.

"W-We have to get him to the town patrol. They'll take care of him." Joel said realising he had to get the firefly away from Ellie as soon as possible.

"Yeah I guess, let's patch up the poor guy first and let him rest." Ellie said.

"Sounds like a plan." Joel said trying not to sound suspicious. All he had to do was protect her one night. He'd sleep on the living room couch. With his gun.

* * *

He saw her. Her face stayed clear in his mind. Except in his dream it was torn to pieces by a clicker as she screamed in pain. Then it turned to him. Damon shot up in cold sweat. A strange girl slept loudly on the floor. He lay in a strange bed. In a strange house. In a strange place. He tried to recollect his thoughts, but the last thing he remembered was snow. Just mounds and mounds of snow that made it even harder than it already was to walk. He lifted the blanket and looked at his feet. Bandages had been placed all over them. He had been walking for days. He didn't know where he was going. He just knew he had to run. Her last wish was for him to run. Not 'Please run', or 'You have to run', just 'Run'. Even in her last moments she continued to show no regard for others. Or how Damon would feel if she sacrificed herself. But it was her last request and he planned to complete it. He'd keep going. The word rung clearly in his every waking moment. 'Run'.

He looked around for his bow and remembered it had been snapped in half as he tried to protect himself from a runner. He saw the miserable looking weapon that had saved his life countless times on his 3 day trek broken on a bedside table. He then looked for her firefly pendant and found it next to the broken bow. He flipped it multiple times in his hand. T. Broderson, 000179. He had memorised the familiar number and repeated it in his head. 000179, 000179, 00017-

"Oh you're awake." Ellie said yawning.

Damon quickly put the pendant around his neck and pulled out the switchblade from the seam of is jacket.

**-Tara's Apocalypse Survival Tip (or T.A.S.T) No. 16**

**Always have a weapon. If someone takes your grenade launcher, have a pistol in your back pocket, if they take that have a knife in your drawers, if they take that as well keep a toothpick under your tongue.**

"Jesus! Look put down your knife we're trying to help" Ellie said taking out her 9mm and placing it in front of her before raising her hands.

**-Tara's Apocalypse Survival Tip No. 5**

**Never surrender to an enemy or a stranger.**

"Put down the knife boy, before I put one between your eyes." Joel said bursting through the door with a rifle aimed at his head.

Damon tried standing up but fell back down due to the pain in his feet.

"W-Who are you people?" Damon said keeping his knife up trying not to show his fear or pain.

"The people that saved your life, you better put that thing away, _right_ now."

Damon looked at the 15 year old girl and the rugged 6"0 ft man that looked like he could kill a bear with his bare hands despite his age.

He put away his knife. Not because he was scared but because he believed them.

**-Tara's Apocalypse Survival Tip No. 1**

**Don't trust, believe or grow fond of anyone.**

What did she know anyway? Her lack of ability to follow her most important rule got her killed. She died because she grew too fond of a bratty kid that took her for granted.

"S-Sorry I'm just a bit...confused. Where the hell am I?" Damon said.

"A refuge town in Wyoming." Ellie said.

"Wyoming huh...All the way out there."

Joel stayed quiet and only dropped his gun a few inches. "So you're a...You're a firefly kid?"

"What? Oh no this is a fr- This _was_ a friend of mines." Damon said pulling out the pendant from out of his shirt. "My names Damon."

Joel breathed a sigh of relief.

"Hey Joel." Ellie said.

"What?"

"You can put the gun down now psycho."

Joel lowered his gun.

"Nice to meet you, I'm Ellie this is Joel." Ellie said shaking his hand.

"Hi..."

"So uhhh...how long have you been walking?"

Damon looked down at his feet.

"About 2 and a half days."

"Non-Stop?"

"Non-Stop."

"Fuck." Ellie said intrigued. "Why didn't you just, stop."

"I don't know. I passed a police camp but I just kept walking."

"Did you eat?"

"No. Geez I guess I haven't eaten in a 3 days."

"Make that 4 days. You've been lights out for 29 hours." Ellie said. "You want some canned beans? Cold of course, for your enjoyment."


	2. Gravel

Damon looked at the empty bowl and was 10x happier than he had 6 minutes ago. He remembered how practically all of Tara's fustration, anger, sadness and fear could be solved with food.

"So uhmm...How did you and your dad get to this place?" Damon asked looking at Joel reading on the couch.

"What? Oh no he's not my dad. He's just a friend." Ellie replied.

Although a few weeks ago Ellie had joked about the possibilities of adoption but he brushed her off.

Damon raised an eyebrow.

"Now I'm even more interested, how did you and your 'friend' get into this situation and living together.

"Well about a year and a half ago Joel's job was to deliver me to the fireflies. You see this?" Ellie said pointing to her bite.

"Jesus you've been bitten!" Damon said dropping his spoon.

"Yeah but it's 15 months old, I'm immune."

"What the fuck?!"

"I know, anyway he was meant to deliver me to the Fireflies so they could create a vaccine but it turns out that there are hundreds like me and all attempts to create a cure have failed...including me." Ellie said looking at her arm.

"I've never heard of anyone who's immune. Are you sure it didn't work? That could change everything!"

"Yeah...I'm sure." Ellie said. "So we sort of bonded along the way and decided to stay together. We've been through alot together."

"Wow, doesn't happen everyday. Yet it sounds very familiar."

"Does it have anything to do with the girl you were muttering about in your sleep? Tara was it?"

"Y-Yeah..."

"Girlfriend?"

"Mentor. Survival coach. Best friend. She was a member of the Fireflies then left. Things went to shit for me and she took me with her on her travels. Sort of like a female Joel actually."

"She sounds nice."

"She wasn't" Damon smiled reminiscing. "She was short-tempered, violent, ruthless and selfish. But she was the greatest human being to ever live. Wish I had had a little more time to tell her that."

"I'm really sorry."

"Don't be, she could have easily pushed me in front of her as a shield against those clickers if she wanted to live but she didn't. I have a feeling she didn't want to live anymore anyway."

This is what made Damon emotional. He wished he could have had someone punch him on the arm and tell him to harden up. He still had a permanent sore spot on his arm from those days.

* * *

2 clickers. 2 clickers were all it took to kill his entire family. They sat in their apartment. The banging of the door was like an mplificated version of their heartbeats. Every second it got louder and faster. More frantic. Until eventually the door cracked. Damon had been holed up with his parents for 5 days. They had food, water, 2 blankets, eveything they needed except their safety. His 6 year old little sister had died the month before while they were trying to get from one apartment in the city to the next and get to the quarantine zone. His dad hadn't been the same and lost most strength he had to try and protect him. He had turned into one of them, metaphorically speaking. He didn't talk, just grunted at answers and ate food even though he had no reason left to live. The truth was he loved his daughter more than his son. His dad had a gun in his hand with 3 bullets. The 3 bullets Damon thought he'd use to protect his family. He didn't.

The 2 clickers burst through the door. The two clickers grabbed Damon's father and bit into him. The gasp of his mother revealed her location and they went to Damon's mother instead. She didn't make a sound. Maybe she had fainted before they got to her. Luckier than most people. Damon's eyes flickered between his fathers body and the clickers eating away at his mother. He looked around the room searching for something to defend himself with.

He pryed the gun with now three bullets out of his fathers blood covered hand and started choking with tears. The clickers heard him and looked up he sprinted out of the destroyed doorway and started running. He didn't know where he was running and his eyes were blurred with tears. Of course the clickers followed. They were faster than him and he knew it. He also knew he was about to die. He stumbled as a clicker swiped at his back knocking him of balance. He hit the ground. A hand took the gun from him.

Thud. Bang! Bang!...Bang!...Click...Click click.

"Shit." Said the voice dropping the gun.

SMACK!

Damon just heard heavy breaths for a few seconds. He opened his eyes that had been shut tight to hold back tears.

Damon looked up at the person. It was a dark haired girl in her mid twenties. She had bright blue eyes that had dark rings under them and her hair was in a long braid. She had a black hoodie with a fur around the hood and grey track pants. Damon's head was inches away from her black and blue sneakers, in surprisingly good condition. Damon recognized them from a few years ago, he had seen them before. Well at least the same make and brand. They were in the window of an abandoned store and cut his hand multiple times trying to break the glass of the shop. He didn't manage to reach them and almost bled to death. Or at least that's how he remembered it. The limited edition pair she was wearing were pristine other than the freshly spilt clicker blood and some dried grass.

"You uhhh...You shouldn't stay here for too long kid." She said putting her hand on her hip.

Damon saw her walking away and tried to speak but couldn't. He'd meant to say thank you but something different came out.

"Wait!...T-Take me with you!" Damon choked getting of the gravel.

"Yeah I don't think that's a good idea-"

"Please. I don't know where the fuck to go and I won't be a nuisance."

She sighed.

"I'm heading to a small refuge. You can follow me and I'll drop you there how bout that?"

"Yeah...Yeah okay." Damon said relieved. "I'm Damon."

"Tara. Follow me."

* * *

"She sounds like she was pretty great." Ellie said. "Enough with all this depressing talk. There's a market in the centre of town, I'll show you around."

Damon and Ellie walked through the streets. Cooked rats, trinkets, second-hand clothing. The place was like a real market.

"Hi, two sandwiches please." Ellie said.

"What's in them?" Damon asked.

"Meat...I think. Who knows, best not think about it, tastes great though."

The two sat in shelter from the snow with a few other people around a fire trying to warm up.

"So what happened to your parents?" Damon asked.

"They uhh...They were killed by runners like everyone else." Ellie replied looking down at her sandwich.

"Oh...I'm really sorry."

"Don't be. That's the world we live in."

"Feels sort of unfair that we were chucked in this shitty world while the one before us lived like royalty."

"It's fucking ridiculous. Maybe it doesn't have to be like that though."

"What do you mean."

"I mean surely there's a way to find a cure, right?"

"I guess but it will be a while before that happens."

"Yeah...Our generation has been completely screwed over. There's like 10 other kids my age here and all of them are paranoid and scared and wierd. I wish we were given a chance just to...relax. Even for a little bit."

"Yeah, to be honest I haven't had much interaction with kids my age. It's all adults that find you annoying."

"It's nice to have someone else to talk to you know...Take your mind of things.?"

The two walked back in the cold. They got back to see Joel asleep.

"Hey I'm just going to do something for a bit okay. Alone." Damon said knowing she would have asked what.

"Okay, suit yourself." Ellie said walking into her room.

Damon took the black hoodie and the broken bow from the closet room he had been sleeping in and walked outside into the cold again. He kept walking till he found a spot behind a building with beer bottles everywhere.

He dug a hole in the snow and threw the hoodie and bow in it. He couldn't bare to throw in her pendant. In fact, he took out the hoodie and decided to keep it. He couldn't afford to throw out warm clothes in winter. And she had loved it too much, too much for him to feel good about leaving it in the snow. He closed up the hole. Wrote TARA, with sticks and placed a beer bottle at the top of the memorial. She had really liked beer. The only two things she had still liked in this world were alcohol and him.

* * *

Tara and Damon sat with all the other huddled occupants of the bunker. When Tara said refuge he had thought there'd be more people. The close to empty bunker had 5 people including Damon and Tara. Tara was just sleeping here for the night. Then she would leave. Damon wondered why she didn't want to stay. He looked at her making shivs in her Puma backpack and wondered what was going on in her head. Was she one of those nuts who's family had been preparing for the apocalypse for years and had stocked up on canned food and guns. Or did she just take well to this kind of world. The other 3 occupants of the bunker were sleeping and Damon didn't want to go to sleep until she did. Possibly because he was scared she'd leave early without saying goodbye. Maybe he'd wake up, she'd be gone and he'd be stuck with some random strangers. To be fair, he had only been with her for a day and a half and they didn't talk much during their travel. She owed him no goodbyes. He put his head down on his old tattered camping pack. And looked at her staring at her hands before closing his eyes.

BANG, BANG, BANG!

Damon and Tara woke up startled by the gunshot to see the other three survivors had committed suicide.

"Jesus fucking christ!" Damon said clutching his head cringing. "Did they just..."

"Yeah looks like it." Tara said knot wanting him to finish the sentence. She looked at the blood sprayed note the three had left.

"Why did they do it? Let me see." Damon said reaching out for the note.

"This isn't something you should be reading. The just of it is, people commit suicide when they feel they can't go on. This worlds a hard place and they just preferred to not live in it."

"Yeah I know that just let me see the note."

"You can see it when you're older. Let's go."

Damon lowered his hand and looked at her as she opened her back and put in all of the rations of food and water.

Damon was happy for some reason. This meant she intended to stay with him till he was older.

She passed him some cans to put in his bag and they walked out. He didn't know where they were going but he didn't care.

After walking for about half an hour in silence Tara stopped walking. "Hey uh Damon." Tara said not turning around to face him. "Don't commit suicide okay. It may seem hard but someone will come around a corner in your life and make it easier."

"Yeah, okay."

"Promise?"

"I promise."

Damon looked at the mound of snow and started to cry. Tears streamed down his face

as finally realized why she had said that. A few minutes before she had saved him. She was about to take her own life. Damon had no idea why. He was the person around the corner.


End file.
